This is a new job for you, Tobias Billström! | Idea

comment. Cyprus is probably synonymous with sunny holidays for most people, and perhaps for some Eurovision entries that have managed to cut through the hype. On social media, the country has recently attracted attention for its European Parliamentarian Phidias Panayiotos He tried to combine his political life with his career as a TikTok influencer.

But Cyprus is also the scene of one of Europe's almost forgotten, but still very much alive, conflicts.

This summer marks 50 years since Turkey invaded and occupied part of the island. Today, the Turkish region is one of the world’s many unrecognized states, strangely called the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.” A “state” recognized only by Ankara, and isolated from the outside world by economic sanctions.

The invasion, known in Turkey as the “peace process,” came after the island, which has a majority ethnic Greek population, gained a government in 1974 that called for union with Greece. Large parts of the Greek population in the north fled or were displaced to the south, while Turkish Cypriots in the south fled to the north. It was all a brutal miniature replay of the so-called “population exchange” between Turkey and Greece in the 1920s.

It's hard as ever not to think about the Nobel laureate. Orhan Pamuk. His latest novel, “Pestnätter,” is set on an island in the Mediterranean. On Menger, as the island is called, conflicts rage between Orthodox Greeks and Turkish-speaking Muslims. Despite the tensions, Menger goes its own way, developing into a nation-state of its own, abandoning all dependence on both Greece and Turkey's predecessor, the Ottoman Empire.

But Menger is a fictional place, and exists only within the covers of the “Pestnätter”. On the other hand, the real Cyprus is still mired in the pain of the imaginary post-Ottoman state.

Twenty years ago, everything could have changed. The then UN Secretary-General added: Anan coffee He presented a plan to reunify Cyprus, as a union of Greek and Turkish states. While most Turkish Cypriots voted yes, Greek Cypriots voted no. However, just a week later, the internationally recognized Greek Cypriot part of the island was allowed to join the European Union.

In this way, the Union not only got involved in a regional conflict, but also lost opportunities to influence the Greek Republic of Cyprus to solve the sourdough problem.

With the Annan Plan, it seemed as if the hope for a united Cyprus had also diminished. Northern Cyprus is now ruled by a president Arsene Tatar, Which calls instead of reunification for a purely two-state solution. When he became the president of Türkiye Erdoganwho himself was involved in the reunification plans in 2004, and visited the capital of the breakaway republic on the occasion of the 50th anniversary, and expressed that a united Cyprus was no longer a real possibility.

But giving up hope for a solution is not only foolish, it is dangerous. A frozen conflict is always at risk of suddenly becoming hot again, and then exploding in the heart of the European Union, with Turkey and Greece on either side in NATO. But a solution is also important for the people of northern Cyprus, who live in international isolation and are completely dependent on Turkey.

Resolving the crisis requires will. We need someone who has established good relations with Ankara and doesn’t have much on the agenda. How much really? Tobias Billstrom For themselves these days?

Theo Farman is acting editor of the culture page at Expressen.